


Biology

by sahiya



Series: The Ties That Bind [3]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, hurt/comfort bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one breath, Sara said, “I’m pregnant.” In the next, “We have to find my sister.” (Spoilers for recent episodes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Biology

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Grief" square on my H/C Bingo card. Thanks to Yamx for the beta!

Sara had always known that Emily was probably dead. 

She pretended otherwise most of the time, for her own sake. If she thought about what might have happened to her, she’d end up like their own mother had: paralyzed by guilt and the unknown. Useless. Sara had always promised herself that she’d never be like her mother, and so she told herself that Emily was alive and well out there. Somewhere, just not here. 

But deep down, she knew the statistics for teenage runaways, and so every time Neal hinted that he and Peter might call in the huge favor owed to them by an agent in Missing Persons, she deflected. Neal let her, but he somehow also let her know that the option was always on the table. 

And there it lay for years. It lay there while she and Neal got back together and, this time, fell in love. It lay there while Neal got his anklet off and took up private security consulting and art restoration. It lay there while the two of them decided they didn’t want to get married, but they did want to have a baby. 

Sara was as surprised as anyone else. She was also old enough by then that she thought they might have trouble conceiving, if they were able to at all. She quietly got the name of the doctor Peter and Elizabeth had gone to briefly, years earlier. She hadn’t been able to help them, El told her, eyes only a little sad, but she might be able to help Sara and Neal, if it came to that. 

It didn’t. Five months after Sara threw away her last Nuva Ring, she found herself looking at a little white stick with a plus sign on it. She set it aside and went to tell Neal. 

In one breath, she said, “I’m pregnant.” In the next, “We have to find my sister.”

Paintbrush in hand, Neal stared, visibly flummoxed for once in his life. Then he set down his brush and kissed her. Of the two of them, he had always wanted the baby just a little bit more, and she could feel how delighted he was. But when she pulled back and looked up at him, she saw that his joy was not untempered. He was worried. 

“I mean it,” Sara said quietly. “I want to find her now.”

For a moment, Neal looked as though he were going to ask why. Sara didn’t have a reasonable explanation. All she knew was that she was having a baby, and if her sister was alive, she wanted her there. 

In the end, he didn’t ask. “Okay,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers.

Sara let Neal handle it. He still worked with the Bureau on occasion, and apparently Kimberley Rice’s favor was not the sort with an expiration date. Sara knew that he and Peter would look into it, and when they found something, they’d tell her. In the meantime, she tried to forget about it. It wasn’t hard. Being pregnant took up a lot of time and energy. Especially energy. 

By the fifth month, the morning sickness and constant fatigue had finally slackened off. Sara had it on reliable authority that her ankles would soon start to swell, but they hadn’t yet. She was enjoying a sweet spot, where for once the “glow” everyone told her she had wasn’t cold sweat from nausea. She and Neal knew they were having a girl, but they hadn’t yet told anyone else. Sara wanted to ward off the inevitable deluge of cotton-candy pink for as long as possible. 

She’d almost forgotten she’d ever asked Neal to find her sister - almost. Never completely. And so when he came to see her at work one day, with a file folder in his hands and a serious expression on his face, she knew what it was. 

He laid it on the desk between them. Sara stared at it. “It’s not good, is it?” she said quietly. 

Neal shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know you were hoping she’d be there when the baby was born.”

Sara’s hand stole to her stomach, now pronouncedly convex. “I guess. I’m not really sure what I was hoping for.” Maybe just that by knowing, she could guarantee she’d never turn into her mother. Never saddle her own daughter with the same burdens she’d been saddled with. Wasn’t that what every generation wanted? For the burden to be a bit easier on the next?

Neal reached across and gripped her hand. “Do you want to read the file or do you want me to tell you?”

Sara thought she might have loved him more at that moment than at any other. “Tell me. Please.”

“She died in 1995,” Neal said quietly, “while living on the streets in LA.”

Sara managed to look at him. “How do you know it was her?”

“Dental records.”

Sara nodded. She didn’t know why the records hadn’t been matched up sooner, nor did she really care. She didn’t want to know the details of the investigation. She never had. 

1995\. That was three years after Emily had run. She’d lasted longer than Sara would have expected. But back then, Em had always been the stronger of the two of them, physically and emotionally. Sara’d gotten stronger with time. She’d had to. 

“How?” she asked.

“Knife wound.” When Sara just looked at him, Neal elaborated, with tangible reluctance, “She was found in an alleyway by a local business owner. Someone had cut her throat. The police thought it might have been a drug deal gone wrong.” Sara nodded. Neal squeezed her hand. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

Sara shook her head, then gave a sudden, bitter chuckle. “A lot. But nothing you can tell me.”

Neal nodded in understanding. “Then come on,” he said, standing. “You’re done for the day.”

Sara brushed the tears away from her eyes. “I’m really not,” she told him. 

“Trust me, you are.” He took her coat down from its hanger and held it up for her, waiting. 

She shook her head. “I can’t have them thinking I’m falling behind because I’m pregnant.”

“Sara,” Neal said quietly, “none of them think that. I spoke to your assistant on my way in, and she’s clearing your schedule this afternoon and tomorrow.”

“But,” Sara said, frowning, “why? What did you tell her?”

“I told her the truth,” Neal said. “That you’d had a death in the family.”

Sara’s throat was suddenly terribly tight. She _had_ , she realized. That it had happened over twenty years ago made no difference. She’d known for years what the odds were - but odds were nothing when it was your own sister, who’d braided your hair and whispered secrets with you in a makeshift fort in the living room. 

Neal helped her with her coat, then took her arm and walked with her out through the office. Word had spread fast; she got a few sympathetic looks, but mostly people avoided her eyes. She held tight to Neal and almost didn’t breathe until they were outside, in the bracing air of a wintry New York afternoon. 

By mutual agreement, they walked back toward their apartment through the park. The time of day and the weather conspired to give them some privacy, and as they neared the lake, they slowed, then stopped. Neal put his arms around her, pressing his face into her hair. Sara tucked her face against his neck. “I’m so sorry,” Neal murmured. “I wanted to find good news for you. Rice kept telling me - but I kept hoping. I know you wanted your family with you.”

Sara sighed, leaning against Neal’s chest, letting him take some of the weight. “I did,” she murmured. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Even if she were alive, I hadn’t seen her in over twenty-five years. She could have found me any time, and she didn’t. So I knew that either she was dead, or she was alive and wanted no part of me. Or us. Or our baby.”

She felt more than saw Neal shake his head. “She was still your family. That means something. Believe me, I know.”

Sara tilted her head back to look up at him. “You’ve been thinking about it, too, haven’t you?” Neal shrugged, glancing away. “Are you going to ask James to visit after the baby’s born?”

“I might,” Neal said, eyes distant. “But he’s not the hard one for me.”

Sara frowned. “Your mom?” He nodded. “I didn’t think you even knew where she was.”

Neal pulled away a little. Sara let him. “After the arrests were finally made in the Flynn case, they let her out of WitSec. She’s living in Austin. I’ve had an address, a phone number, and an email for three years.” He looked back at Sara. “She’s family, too. I’m not sure our baby wouldn’t be better off without her, but I can’t help but think she deserves to meet her granddaughter. Besides,” Neal looked sad, “she and James are pretty much all the family our baby’s going to have.”

Sara laughed suddenly, a little rough and raw, but with genuine amusement. “I’m sorry,” she said, when Neal looked at her, “but what do you mean they’re the only family she’s going to have? What about Peter and El? What about Mozzie and June, Diana and Clinton? They count, too.”

“Of course,” Neal said, frowning. “Of course, it’s just - there’s something about . . . biology.”

She reached up and cupped his face, smoothing her thumb over his cheek. “You’re telling me.” She sighed and turned in his arms, linking her elbow with his and tugging him down the path. “Invite your mom if you want. It’s been a long time, and people change - you and I are proof of that. But I won’t push you, just because my story didn’t turn out the way I wanted.”

Neal nodded. “Thank you.”

“No,” she said quietly, covering his hand with her own. “Thank you. I’m glad to know, even if it hurts.”

He nodded. “Knowing is better,” he said, equally as quiet. 

Neither of them spoke again until they reached home. Neal made her a cup of tea and then disappeared upstairs into his studio. Thinking hard, Sara suspected. She was thinking, too, about the family she’d been born into and the family she’d made, with Neal. She remembered a time once when that family had frightened her. Now she couldn’t recall how she’d ever survived without them. She supposed she had just never let herself feel how horribly lonely she was.

She wasn’t lonely anymore. Her sister couldn’t help her through this, but there were other people who could. Sara curled up in the bay window with her mug of tea and a throw and pulled out her cell phone. 

El answered on the third ring. “Sara,” she said, and then paused for just a second too long. “How are you doing?”

She knew already, thank God. Sara didn’t think she could bear to deliver the news yet. She was, for a moment, grateful that her parents were dead, sparing her having to tell them. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s strange - not really a shock after so long, but somehow I think I’d convinced myself that maybe she’d beaten the odds.”

“I understand,” El said quietly. “Peter and I are both very sorry for your loss. And if there’s anything I can do, you know you only have to ask.”

“There is, actually,” Sara said. She swallowed. “Would you be with me when the baby’s born? Neal will be there, of course, but I wanted - and I thought, you know me better now than she would.” Sara didn’t think that’d come out very coherently, but it was the best she could do. She held her breath and waited. “El?” she said, when several seconds went by with no answer. “I’m sorry, if it’s - if you’d rather not, I wouldn’t -”

“No, no,” El said, “I was just -” Her voice broke. “Yes, of course I’ll be there,” she finally managed. “Thank you for asking me.”

“I’d understand if you’d rather not,” Sara said again. El had never given her any reason to believe she was jealous, not really, but once or twice Sara had glimpsed a certain wistful sadness on her face. Sara never doubted that El and Peter were happy for them, but there had to be moments when it was hard. 

“No, I want to,” El said firmly. “I hope I’ve never made you think I’m not thrilled for you and Neal about this. Sometimes I think about the road not taken, but I don’t regret anything about my life with Peter. We made the decisions that were right for us, and you and Neal are making the decisions that are right for you. And I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than being with you when the baby’s born.”

“Thank you,” Sara said, as her own voice cracked horribly. She drew a deep, shaky breath. “Would you come over tonight? You and Peter?”

“Of course. Pizza and a movie?”

Sara managed a smile. “Sounds perfect.”

They hung up. Sara stayed in the window sill, hand spread over her abdomen. She knew Neal was right: there was something about biology. But it wasn’t everything, not by a long shot. _You’re going to be okay, kid,_ she thought at the baby. _Even if your family doesn’t look like anybody else’s, you’re going to be okay._

_Fin._


End file.
